1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, a printing control method, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, offset printing using a plate has been employed to obtain a print product. Recently, in addition to the offset printing, plateless digital printing methods represented by an electrophotographic method are also used.
Characteristics of plate offset printing are that the costs for high volume printing are low, and that the printing speed is fast. On the other hand, characteristics of plateless digital printing is that it enables variable page printing, represented by variable data printing (VDP), for outputting different content on a per-page basis.
In VDP, the output content is different depending on the intended party, such as in direct mailing. In VDP, printing is performed by arranging information pieces in database having the same format but different contents, such as destination addresses, to a layout prepared in advance.
For example, in VDP, simply the destination address may be different. For another example, in VDP, an image (content) or paper to be used may be different according to information unique to the receiving party, which can cause the page number to change. A VDP job is configured as one large job including many records.
In general digital printing, a job can be cancelled on the printing apparatus. For example, when an operator realizes after printing has started that there is an error in the job contents, the operator can cancel the job. In addition, if a problem such a paper jam occurs during printing, the printing apparatus automatically stops processing of the job.
However, in VDP, the size of the job may be very large, so that it can take a very long time to input the job again into the printing apparatus. Therefore, cancelling a job leads to a substantial decrease in printing productivity.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-62292 discusses a method that, when a paper-related error occurs in a printing apparatus, can cancel the processing of the affected job and preferentially output the other input jobs that are not affected by the paper-related error. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-59983 discusses a method for continuing printing of a job that is interrupted because some types of paper ran out the printing apparatus by using substitute paper.
However, during printing the operator may set the wrong paper in a paper feed stage in the printing apparatus. For example, this can occur when the paper set in a predetermined paper feed stage and used for a job turns out to be orange paper mistakenly set by the operator, when red paper should have been set.
Since the printing apparatus cannot recognize such a paper setting mistake, the operator only learns of the mistake after printing has actually started.
For example, consider a case in which “blue” paper is meant to be set in a first paper feed stage and “red” paper is meant to be set in a second paper feed stage, but after printing has started the operator realizes that the paper actually set in the second paper feed stage is not “red”, but is “orange”.
In this case, according to the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-62292, the operator has to reset the correct paper in the second paper feed stage and re-input the job. Further, if the operator does not wish to print using substitute paper, even in the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-59983, the operator has to cancel the job, reset the correct paper in the second paper feed stage, and re-input the job. If the job size is very large, this means that such a job has to be re-input, which can cause printing productivity to decrease.